So I've only been playing MTG for about 4 years now, so I'm a relative newbie to everything, but to those of you who have been playing for longer, how often does it get this shitty, and how long does it last?? Formats are completely busted wide open, with Standard especially has been near unplayable for over half a year, Arena got predatory af, WOTC has been pricing up the game worse than ever, and the story got completely dog after Ixalan.

I don't enjoy playing Commander and draft has never really been my forte, so what should I really do? Invest an unhealthy amount of money into Modern? Just wait for things to turn around? I haven't spent a dime on the game since Throne of Eldraine and my wallet has been thanking me, but I'm still dissapointed as Magic had been a fantastic experience for me the past few years.

Is there any other paper card games I could be looking into rn? Honestly my experience with TCG's is limited to just Pokemon, Magic, and Hearthstone so I'm willing to try anything, it's just depressing to watch something seemingly fall apart so disastrously as this.

"Chandra had never been into girls. Her crushes -- and she'd had her fair share--were mostly the brawny (and decidedly male) types like Gids."

  • throwawaylemmy [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Oh! I just remembered, I enjoyed Legends of Runeterra as a "casual Magic" clone digitally. It's not EXACT, but it does some good things (changes the land system to a Hearthstone "ramp" system, but if you don't use your "mana" that turn, you bank at least 3 of them for spells, which helps during a turn to cast more things.

    I think that and Eternal are decent Magic clones but they make mobile-version concessions that Arena's mobile is gonna be interesting to see in regards to Magic's stack/complexity.

    Also Runeterra was pretty F2P friendly when I tried it during the mobile version launch. I don't THINK it has expansions yet, so I can't say if that'll hold true when it starts to bring expansions out, but it's a good "ground floor" time in trying that right now.

    Modern is still played, but Pioneer has kind of taken over it's thunder because it cut a lot of the older sets out.

    Balance in Magic goes in a "see-saw" fashion where people complain about power-creep and then Wizards nerfs things to where people complain about it not being "fun"/interesting (hello, FIRE design) to where they then power-creep. The block/era you're talking about (Dominaria to Guilds-Alli-War) is where Dominaria "nerfed" levels and then it crept-up to War. So you rode the "crest." Thing is, Wizards supposedly "nerfed" in Elderaine, but we all know how that's gone (Hello brOko!).